January 2019 Update: Onboarding new Qualified Token Issuers

We are ready to summarize the results of the first month of work of BetterTokens. The procedure that Waves and BetterTokens started is unprecedented and aimed to set up new quality standards on the market.

Results

During the month of January BetterTokens team received:

14 applications requests for Qualified status;

several partnership requests; and

a number of emails from the community requesting details on the application procedure.

The requests were submitted by different projects (from agriculture to gaming industry) and geographies (from South America to Asia), proving that Waves ecosystem is borderless and diversе from business perspective.

Positive review results

Currently the assessment of 7 projects has been finalized and 3 projects out of 7 were awarded with Qualified status.

We welcome new members on board: BountyBusters (XBBT), Blockscart (BLXS) and CoffeeCoin (COF). Those projects will receive logo in Waves client and ticker on DEX, together with Qualified status.

Negative results

The remaining 4 projects that were subject to BetterTokens review were not able to meet the Tokenization Standards and obtain the Qualified status.

We would like to highlight the main areas where those projects faced difficulties in order to pass the review.

AML/KYC

The main barrier for most of the projects was the lack of AML/KYC procedures. The objective of the AML/KYC procedure is to protect the financial system from money laundering and the financing of terrorism. Token issuers as a general rule are required to conduct these procedures at the time of the ICO.

When ICO is conducted through cryptocurrency exchanges the difference between centralised and decentralised exchanges shall be taken into account.

As a general rule and because of its decentralised nature, DEX does not include functionality to conduct AML/KYC of the investors, as the transactions are settled on peer-to-peer basis without involvement of any intermediaries. Therefore, if the project is conducting ICO through DEX, it has to ensure the compliance with relevant requirements by itself, as there is no intermediary in form of an exchange operator that could outsource this function.

In case the exchange is centralised, it is important to study the operational practice of such exchange to make sure that the users undergo AML/KYC procedures. If those are not implemented by the exchange, the project conducting an ICO will have to assume the AML/KYC compliance by itself.

Based on the results of the review of the applications it is important to note that each situation has to be analysed on a case-by-case basis, as circumstances of each ICO may differ one from another.

White Paper content

Several projects have not included in the White Paper a minimum amount of information that we believe should be provided to the investors to be able to make an informed decision.

This includes information about founders and key team members, as well as a summary of risks related to the token price.

Business model

If the project is launching an ICO to build new for-profit business, the White Paper should contain a comprehensive description of the business model. Project investors should have a clear understanding of the investment object.

If the business objectives of the project and its development are connected with certain risks, we consider advisable to include into the White Paper the risk awareness part.

Blockchain

As a guideline for the projects, we also want to draw attention to the core — the blockchain.

Projects that are planning to implement blockchain in their business model should explain why blockchain technology is used and how it is implemented in the business model. The rationale for using blockchain should be clearly explained and disclosed in the White Paper.

Projects under review

There are several projects that currently are undergoing the review procedure and additional information requests. We are also constantly receiving new application requests.

We want to kindly remind the projects which have their tokens listed on DEX that in order to maintain current tickers, token issuers will have to go through BetterTokens review process. Projects that have not undergone BetterTokens review process will only be searchable on DEX by their token ID, starting on June 18, 2019.

As was announced previously the Waves team is making this process more accessible for projects by launching Waves Subsidy Programme and lowering the costs for the review for issuers down to 10 WCT. The Subsidy Programme will last until June 15, 2019.

BetterTokens team is open for your applications and requests, feel free to connect with us via sec@bettertokens.org.